Soshima - Connecting is New Selling! . : : . custom social media solution for your business . : : .

I think “group shopping” is not a new idea. From the time that I started buy things for myself, I already knew that if you buy bulk, the price will be cheaper. For a lot of events, if you buy as a group (different organization has different policy, 10 or 20 as the benchmark) then you get cheaper tickets. And so on.

At now digital age, we had “groupon” (groupon.com) in the US, similar format “Jumponit” (jumponit.com.au) in Australia…this website just in market for about two months, but I already shopped 5 times, and I haven’t used any of them yet--- all paid in advance. Why did I do that?

Popular mobile social network Foursquare will open online shop soon. Devoted users will be able to buy branded merchandise including t-shirts, stickers, badges and pins. Shop will be open this summer on Foursqure.com

Location based network is next social phenomenon. In just over a year and half of existence they attracted over 1.6M members, whom are very active and passionate users of Foursquare services.

In the previous blog, I mentioned that a lot of FMCG and fashion companies leverage social media to communicate with consumers and listen to them, engage them. I have been wondering how other industries to embrace this web2.0 trend. But think about it --- social media, which we are using these days, which is expanding our social circle to connect or reconnect with new/old friends, etc.; providing a platform for ordinary audience to freely confront any issue or body, in a way strengthening the social collected power.

She mastered craft, cooking, publishing business, catalogue sales and now Twitter. Master Martha Stewart have close to 2 million followers and won’t stop any time soon. But she have to restrict herself to only 5 minutes of tweeting a day, as it’s “too addictive”.

As usual we can learn from Martha. Few Twitter marketing tips are below:

Social media is on the way to replace email. We can expect more relevant messages, less spam, better productivity and more branded messages. May not happen tomorrow, but soon it will.
Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg supported idea that email could be replaced by social messaging. Mostly by Facebook and Twitter. This won’t happen tomorrow, but by her report from Neilsen’s consumer 360 conference, only 11% teens use email daily. If brand want to reach teens obviously email is not the best solution anymore.

I always think that social network sites, like Youtube, Facebook, Twitter are best platform for FMCG brands/products, given the “social” point of them. Today I read this article from WARC (http://www.warc.com/News/TopNews.asp?ID=26818&Origin=WARCNewsEmail), talking about Retail, grocery and fashion brand dominate on social media, that’s it. Starbucks and Coca-Cola top the list with the index score 69.2% and 53.1% respectively, in terms of leveraging emerging digital platforms to engage target audience.

"The future of retail is the integration of Internet and digital services with the retail network."
Charles Dunstone, founder of Carphone Warehouse

"It's hard to find things that won't sell online."
Jeff Bezos, founder, Amazon

Fast Company created amazing list of 100 most creative people. List is great source of inspiration – insight into people who are changing our lives. Not only through technology, but business, music, TV and sport.

This comprehensive feature is masterfully designed by Fast Company creative team. Each person have small dashboard, including bio text, video clips, image gallery, search trends, stock prices, google news and similar related links.

Report: IBM’s 2010 Global CEO Study has gathered a wealth of insight into the future of business through face-to-face interviews with over 1,500 CEOs, including large enterprises as well as midsized companies. The four main findings are:

1.The vast majority of CEOs anticipate even greater complexity in the future, and more than half doubt their ability to manage it.
2.CEOs believe creativity is the most important leadership quality. Creative leaders encourage experimentation throughout their organizations.

Last night ABC show “Q & A” was very intensive; I guess the panellists and audiences all got quite excited.